1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a loader, especially a bridging loader, equipped with at least two bucket wheels for loose or bulk material dumps or piles, with the bucket wheels being movable along the front of a pile of bulk material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With known loaders of the aforementioned general type, the bucket wheels are arranged next to one another. The use of several bucket wheels generally increases the conveying capacity, but especially serves to improve the thorough intermixing or blending of different constituents of the deposited or dumped bulk material. The bucket wheels are moved back and forth at the base of the front of a pile. The bulk material which is to be removed or conveyed away is essentially supplied to the bucket wheels via different feeding devices, such as rakes, scrapers, chains, cutters, or other loosening devices. These devices, which perform conveying or vibrating motions, often require a considerable cost for apparatus. Additionally, the danger exists in many cases during use of these devices that the pile becomes undercut, as a result of which the bucket wheels are covered up. Feeding or supplying these devices is especially difficult where the pieces of bulk or loose material are coarser, for example about 300 mm; these difficulties increase considerably with larger advance steps of the loader, i.e. such greater than 300 mm.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a bucket wheel loader with which especially even coarser bulk material can be reliably removed or conveyed away from the pile without difficulties.